Icon: enlarge
Armin Laschet: The CDU chairmanship will be decided at a digital federal party conference on January 15 and 16
Photo: Caroline Seidel / dpa
For the SPD, Olaf Scholz will be running for Chancellor in the federal election in September.
The Union's candidate has not yet been determined.
There the CDU first has to vote on its new chairman.
Now applicant Armin Laschet has registered his right to the Union's candidacy for chancellor.
In an interview with the magazine »Stern«, Laschet made it clear, according to a preliminary announcement on Wednesday, that he trusts himself to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).
He also believes that he is the most suitable candidate for the party leadership to continue Merkel's policy.
The CDU chairmanship will be decided at a digital federal party conference on January 15 and 16.
In addition to Laschet, the former Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz and the CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen are applying to succeed the outgoing party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
"A break with Angela Merkel would be exactly the wrong signal," Laschet emphasized in the "Stern".
In the interview he was confident that the delegates at the party congress would decide according to criteria that spoke for him: “Who has ever won an election, who has ever led a government, who knows what is important, about people Laschet sees himself clearly ahead on all these points.
Laschet sees less the SPD and its candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the Greens as the strongest competitors of the CDU / CSU for the federal election.
The election in September is "about the middle," he emphasized.
The Greens are the "greatest challenge," but the Union must not lose sight of the AfD in the election campaign.
"A tough demarcation is required," demanded Laschet.
Most recently, Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU) said that he did not want to commit to the party leaders of the CDU and CSU when running for chancellor.
Brinkhaus told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he could also imagine other candidates.
Icon: The mirror
asc / AFP